Gone are the days of thanklessly pounding away at the pedals in your living room with just upbeat music to sustain you. With the rise of smart technology, home exercise bikes have entered a new dimension of interactivity.
Companion apps can help you track your progress, follow training programmes, cycle through stunning scenic backdrops, and even let you join in virtual group rides.
Hardest to miss of these buzzy new exercise assistants is Peloton. Its proprietary app – and extensive ad campaign in the early days of the pandemic – created rampant word-of-mouth buzz. It offered a premium gym experience (at a premium price) from the comfort of your own home: Peloton bike owners can use the impressive 22-inch built-in screen on their bike to engage in workout classes across a wide range of types and intensities, both live and pre-recorded.
But Peloton isn't the only brand looking to make riding your exercise bike more immersive and appealing – there are plenty ofcompetitors offering similar but cheaper apps.
As part of our recent exercise bikes test, we got hands-on with some of the compatible apps available to see how the features and user experiences compare. Read on to see how apps including Peloton, iFit and Zwift measure up.
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Exercise bike workout apps compared
Most apps offer a free trial before you sign up to a subscription, but they don't come cheap, with prices ranging from around £10 to nearly £40 per month.
It's worth factoring this in when you're looking at your bike budget, and thinking about what features are most important to you. Here's what the big players offer:
Peloton App
£39 per month / 100-day free trial with a Peloton bike
New bikes come with a 100-day free trial of the Peloton app, after which you'll have to pay £39 a month (£468 per year) for continued access. This is on top of the exercise bike's initial price of £1,345 -- a significant investment.
Signing up for an app membership was a simple process, and before long we were in the world of Peloton. The app menu is easy to navigate, with classes, schedules and goals to choose from.
There are loads of class options, with choices based on the genre of music you want to ride to, your own fitness level, how intense a workout you want, to name just a few. There are live classes too, where your performance is ranked and displayed in a leaderboard made up of other participants around the world.
It's not just cycling the app offers. It also has classes for stretching, yoga, weight lifting and more.
All of the metrics for your exercise are displayed on screen at all times -- such as the resistance level you've selected. As the class progresses and you're instructed to switch up the tempo or the resistance, graphics on screen indicate how you need to change how you're riding.
The production value is high for all the classes, and the instructors leading them were all charismatic and motivating.
There are also some other options if classes aren't your style, such as scenic bike rides that tour you through locations from mountain tops to city centres, and an interactive rhythm video game that sees you quickly upping and lowering your resistance and cadence in time with a thumping soundtrack and Tron-esque visuals.
All in all, you're likely to feel you're getting your money's worth.
We trialled this app on the Original Peloton Bike.
JRNY
£17.49 per month / 1-month free trial
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The JRNY app is compatible with most Schwinn exercise bikes, and also includes access to the 'Explore the world' app (details below).
Signing up to JRNY was easy, and after creating an account there is a free one-month trial available. Beyond that, it costs £17.49 a month or £139.99 a year.
The app assesses your fitness level to recommend workouts based on your abilities, available time and mood.
There are plenty of classes available and they're all fairly well presented, but they lack some of the energy of other workout classes we tried because they're all filmed in very generic looking studios and feature only the instructor, rather than an entire class of people cycling along to the programme.
JRNY also captures (and displays) your metrics, so you know how you're performing as well as keeping up with things like past milestones, achievements, and personal bests.
We did find that there was some input lag from what we were doing on the bike to what was happening on screen, and the bike was sometimes a little particular about when it would register your movements. If we stopped cycling, the app seemed to lose connection with the bike.
We trialled this app on the Schwinn 510U Upright Cycle.
Explore the World
Included with JRNY subscription
If the sound of Peloton's 'Scenic rides' appeals to you, a cheaper option could be to opt for a Schwinn bike that supports the 'Explore the World' app.
Much like 'Scenic rides', this app transports you to beautiful locations around the globe, with more than 200 locations available.
It goes the extra mile though, so could be good for those longing for wilder spaces. Where Peloton essentially has you cycling along to a pre-recorded video, this app allows you to interact with the landscape. You only move along the 3D rendered cycle path as you pedal, with the rate of your progression matched up to how quickly you're pedalling at your chosen level of resistance.
This added layer of interactivity really gives you some agency in your experience, and we found it motivating to want to keep going and carry on exploring. The photography is high definition and it feels steady as the camera speeds up and slows down.
Explore the World comes as part of the JRNY subscription.
We trialled this app on the Schwinn 510U Upright Cycle.
Zwift
£12.99 per month / 14-day free trial
Zwift is an interesting app where you control a virtual avatar riding through a digital world populated with other avatars controlled by other people exercising at home, making for an interactive experience ideal for those who need a little competitive spirit to get them going.
Once you've downloaded the app, you set up an account and create your avatar, using personal information like your height, weight and gender, and custom options like accessories, outfits and bikes. The more you use Zwift, the more options you unlock for avatar customisation.
Suitably kitted up, you're dropped into Zwift's 'Watopia' world, a colourfully rendered paradise complete with mountains, ocean-side cycle paths, roads and forests. There are other maps available too, including some based on London, New York and Paris.
You're free to cycle around the game world at your leisure, but there are also organised races, group rides and workouts available to join.
It's remarkably compelling to see someone else cycling ahead of you and try to catch up and overtake them, with your bike's speed calculated using your real-life performance on whatever exercise bike you're using.
We tried Zwift on a Schwinn model, but there are many other exercise bike brands that are compatible, including Life Fitness. We have also reviewed the Life Fitness IC1 Indoor Studio Bike, and you can find a full list of supported bikes on Zwift's website.
We used a 14-day free trial, but a month's subscription costs £12.99 (£155.88 per year), making it a considerably cheaper option than some rivals.
We trialled this app on the Schwinn 510U Upright Cycle.
Echelon Fit
£29.99 per month / 30-day free trial
Echelon's proprietary app is fairly essential to use the Echelon bike to its full potential, as this model doesn't have a built-in display.
Signing up was easy, and there's a free trial available. Full memberships start at £29.99 per month, £299.90 per year, or £479.76 for two years, and give you access to thousands of live and on-demand fitness classes led by professional trainers.
This abundance of classes ranges from endurance rides to scenic tours, and it's easy to navigate through the extensive options and filter them to your preferences.
There are some nice touches here, such as the classes showing you their playlist before you enter them, but we felt the general vibe was one of lower production values than other apps. There wasn't any way we could see to customise the classes either, although this may not be a big problem given the sheer range of them.
You need an Echelon bike to use Echelon Fit, so you'd expect them to be designed with this in mind. However, we found that the bottom of the phone screen where metrics are displayed wasn't visible due to the ridge of the tablet holder. We also found that the Echelon app was a real battery drainer, but fortunately there is a USB port on the side of the bike console so you can stay plugged in and charging while riding.
There was noticeable input lag between turning up the tension with the knob on the handlebar column and the app showing you your resistance level, which was frustrating when trying to follow fast-paced workouts.
The app is available on any iOS or Android device, and some Echelon models come with a touchscreen attached that displays the app.
We trialled this app on the Echelon Connect 3 Exercise Bike.
iFit
£9.99 per month / 30-day free trial
iFit is another app that centres around delivering live and pre-recorded workout classes. There's a 30-day free trial available, with a monthly subscription costing £9.99 and an annual one costing £104.99.
Setting up an account was easy, although we had to do so through a web browser rather than the app itself. It also automatically filled in gender, height and weight with incorrect measurements, but this was an easy fix.
The app is easy to navigate and there's a good range of workouts, with many of them organised into series -- collections with a focus on training or weight-loss, for example.
There's a lot of choice for intermediate and advanced classes, but the selection for beginners seemed very limited in comparison. Most of the programmed rides available seemed to be at least 30 minutes or longer, so if you're after a quick session you may be better off using the bike in manual mode.
iFit has its own global workouts, with classes led and effectively tour-guided by an instructor who would explain where you were and what type of terrain and intensity was coming up. The app displays your exercise metrics as you go, as well as information about the workout programme you're on.
The iFit app is compatible with exercise bikes from NordicTrack, ProForm, Freemotion and Matrix.
We trialled this app on the ProForm 225 CSX.
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Exercise bike buying tips
The advent of exercise apps makes the process of buying home exercise equipment more complex. You'll need to think carefully about what's most important to you and the kind of workouts you enjoy.
You don't necessarily need the ability to connect your bike to an external app, though. If you're wanting a cheap way to immerse yourself in the ride, streaming first-person cycling videos from sites such as YouTube can put you in the saddle pretty much anywhere you can think of, without an ongoing monthly cost.
However, a large part of what people find so motivating about these workout apps is the social component, where your progress and performance can be compared to other users. This is harder to replicate with cheaper alternatives.
As engaging as these apps can be, it's also important to get an exercise bike that will support your fitness goals and keep you comfortable while doing so. Our rigorous lab tests assess how comfortable an exercise bike is to ride and how easy it is to set up and use, as well as its stability, usability and adjustability options.
See our exercise bikes buying guide and top recommendations for 2023 for advice on choosing the perfect bike for you.
source https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/the-best-alternatives-to-peloton-workout-apps-for-exercise-bikes-compared-aw4AM9d0BIhA